Katelyn Cohen tackles some of the most widely-held myths about sex.
Old-fashioned ideas have left sex shrouded in mystery. Many of us have heard the following myths and repeated them at one time or another and much of them have been accepted as truths. We’ve heard them on the school yard and we’ve read them on the internet. It’s important for our continuous and progressive sex education to debunk them. GetLusty’s Katelyn Cohen breaks down 5 super-dumb sex myths.
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#1 Men and women have different sexual peaks
Who hasn’t heard this at some point? Men reach their sexual peak at 18, or so, while women do not until their 30s—so the story goes. And although there is little evidence to support this statement, it continues to perpetuate. Yes, it is true sex hormones change drastically for men and women during these ages, but that does not necessarily indicate a change in the desire for frequent sex. In fact, women are most fertile in their early 20s.
Rather, this myth is an attempt to explain why teenage boys are so horny and why the cougar phenomenon exists. It’s possible that women in their 30s and 40s are more confident in their sexuality and express it more freely. And young women, due in large part to societal pressure, may hide their sexual urges more so than young men. Ultimately, changes in personal attitude seem to affect sexuality more than changes in age.
#2 Vaginal orgasms are the best orgasms
This myth was spread by none other than Freud himself. He argued that clitoral orgasms were immature and that real women only had vaginal orgasms through sexual intercourse. Scientific research has shown women can have different types of orgasms through various means of stimulation, and it’s all perfectly normal!
That has not stopped women, however, from feeling inadequate about their orgasms. Many women feel they’re doing something wrong if they’re not able to climax during sex. The documentary, Orgasm Inc., examines the lengths women will go to have the “right” kind of orgasm. Everything from creams, pills and surgeries are being marketed to women as a cure to a non-problem.
#3 Great sex just happens
Pop culture dictates that when two people are very attracted to one another, sparks fly and amazing sex ensues – unless you are just bad at sex. In that case, there is no hope for you. This all-or-nothing view to sex is categorically false! All lovers need practice to become good lovers. Firstly, communication about sex is paramount in beginning to satisfy your partner. Open-mindedness will lead to trying techniques and positions. Add a little time and practice, and any couple can have fantastic sex.
#4 Planned sex is bad sex
The myth here is that if you aren’t having spontaneous sex, it’s just not worth it. When long-term couples become busy, sex is one of the first things to slip. You may then begin to worry your partner does not find you attractive or that your desire is gone. In this case, it helps to make a schedule. Select a day (or days) the two of you will commit to having sex. The idea that this denotes routine and boring sex could not be further from the truth. Actually, the anticipation of the special day can make planned sex especially exciting.
#5 Chocolate will up your libido
Chocolate has long been touted as an aphrodisiac that increases libido. Chocolate, in fact, does contain tryptophan and phenylethylamine, which can give you lovey-dovey feelings. However, you would have to eat tons of M&Ms to feel the effects. According to a study, though, there is no difference in sexual satisfaction or arousal in people who’ve eaten chocolate. The sexy effects of a candy bar are most likely psychological instead.
Originally appeared at Get Lusty For Couples
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Katelyn Cohen holds an MA in Sexuality Studies from Dublin City University. Her specific areas of interest include sexual health and social trends. In addition to writing and music, Katelyn enjoys crossword puzzles, trivia, and knitting. Katelyn is a staff writer at GetLusty among many other amazing feats. She is also a cellist and singer-songwriter who plays with several Chicago bands. Want to know more? Follow Katelyn on Twitter @katelyncohen or email her here.
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Lead image courtesy of Flickr/dbrekke
It is highly individual…at fifty, I am having the best sex of my life, and I see threads of everything being discussed here. Porn culture evidenced in more recent partners (after a multi-decade relationship), but increased ease and freedom with myself, my partner and our sexuality that is the gift of our age and our relaxation with life. Porn and cultural expectations do neither men nor women any favors, but I find younger lovers have tended to have more open attitudes about gender roles, while same age peers have been less influenced by porn culture and grew up learning sex… Read more »
What do men want? Or what does mankind want…. Since the beginning we were used to have our roles in life well defined. It justified kings, wars, poverty, richness over the eras. And during the last decades, we lost our last definition when women reached their place in the society (to be fair, not in all societies in this planet yet!). Now, we have the freedom to choose. But freedom didn´t come with education. So, we will spend another era to understand on how to prepare ourselves and our kids to this new brave world. For some, freedom to choose… Read more »
#6- It doesn’t necessarily get better with age. While there is truth in #1 that there is no “magic” age, individually we have peaks. I can attest that sex in my 20’s was more satisfying than sex in my 40’s. Not to say it isn’t pleasurable but the desire & need changes/diminishes as we mature. The good thing is a strong relationship is about much more than sex.
Hormones could well be similar. But since women in this culture are pretty well crippled sexually by childhood and adolescent socialization, anyone who has slept with a twenty year-old woman and one in her thirties can tell you that the woman in her thirties is likely more open to sexuality and more relaxed about it. It takes that long to typically shed the injuries done by our culture.
agreed, my sex drive was dramatically higher in my 20’s but I had so many hang ups, I had trouble enjoying it. I couldn’t talk about sex and even felt embarassed about having an orgasm with my partners. Now I’m in my 40’s and I feel very little inhibition or shame about sex. But my libido is certainly less than it used to be. I thought about sex constantly in my 20’s! I still love sex but it takes more than it used to to get me going.
To that comment I would ask, when’s the last time you had sex with a woman in her early twenties? I will concede that the past few 30+ women I’ve been with seem to have an easier time coming to orgasm, which is something I’d attribute to just having more experience with sex and what their bodies respond to. But there’s been a massive cultural shift between mine (late Gen Xer) and the following generations. If anything, the early twenties girls I’ve been with in the past few years have been more open and relaxed about sex than their 30+… Read more »
I think that this is likely an artifact of hookup/porn culture, which substitutes fetishes for real sexuality. One way of seeing this is that sexuality in the culture has had a tendency to become more fetishized (more male,) where real sexuality is less fetishized (more female. I.e. more sensual, not female in sexually crippled terms.)
Hank, I adore what you had to say here. I wish you would write about it in an article for GMP! PLEASE do it. 🙂
As an early Gen-X’er (I was born in 1967), we were terrified of AIDS. Also, we grew up during a period of backlash against the libertine ’60’s. Our parents were not Baby Boomers for the most part, they were the earlier generation who were born in the Depression and came of age in the 1950’s. They were a very conflicted generation, influenced by the ’60’s but not quite part of it. By contrast, the people in their early 20’s today were raised by Baby Boomers during a post-AIDS time period where there has been an explosion of sexual expression and… Read more »
I don’t think porn has much to do with sexuality.
Our parents were not Baby Boomers for the most part, they were the earlier generation who were born in the Depression and came of age in the 1950′s.
iirc ive seen that generation called the ‘silent generation’. i prefer to call them the ‘rocknroll’ generation
DD, you threw a question out regarding younger women vs older women and I’m going to throw my own question out about pleasure. How do you know the women you’re sleeping with are actually having orgasms and not just pretending? I hate to admit this but I have faked alot of orgasms just so that my male partner was happy. I never had a partner figure out that I was faking. Usually they felt very proud of themselves. Unfortunetly, girls are socialized to cater to other people’s fulfillment and happiness over their own. Especially when you are young and you… Read more »
How do I know the women I’ve been with are actually having orgasms? Well, the truth is that I don’t always know. I usually make it clear upfront that orgasm is not a goal for me (I only ejaculate about ⅓ of the time I have sex), so that generally takes away the pressure to orgasm or lie about orgasming with most women. I also tend to bring many women to orgasm through manual stimulation… in those cases, I can actually feel the pulsing of the vaginal walls or increased wetness leading up to and following an orgasm. Those things… Read more »
There was an article on this site just recently where the author claimed that women may very well be the majority of porn viewers. I know I read a piece a little while ago that said VISA the credit card company claimed that 39% of online porn purchased with their card were purchased by cards belonging to women. I guess it only figures that if this new , even more sexually liberated generation of women are looking for things to try, as in experiment, their going to be looking at more porn.
Perhaps this is dependent on experience, but I find that what Erin is saying is very true. When I think about how many times I’ve been asked to do rough/invasive things that would be uncomfortable to me (some of which seem to be lifted directly from porn) vs the amount of times I’ve been asked to explore things that I would find pleasurable, the numbers tell a very disappointing story.
As a Millenial, I see no sign of this. Younger girls are up for everything their mothers are.
Probably a generational thing, which is why generalizations sound kind of silly. women of your generation were crippled by that. Women of my generational are sexually open, but emotionally stunted and incapable of handling disagreement or rejection (too much “You go, girl!” and “Girl power!” in their youths. Pendulums over swing).
One probably is true. Anyway, no evidence is offered to the contrary. Two is irrelevant because, per Masters and Johnson, there’s only one kind of orgasm anyway. Yes, the clitoris alo has processes on the anterior wall of the vagina, so an orgasm could indeed start there.
I disagree, if you mean that there is a biological “peak” that men hit at 18 and women hit in their 30s or 40s. Personally I think it has to do with the fact that young people, of both sexes, get a hormone surge, but men are the ones socialized to be sexually aggressive and to rate themselves based on how many partners they get. Young women are socialized to not have a high number of partners, yet have guys trying to have sex with them all the time. There’s no challenge to getting sex, and social punishment for having… Read more »
I think you’re right, Drew. At 66, I’m old enough to remember the 50’s & early 60’s, the era of arch-conventionality. Men showed their sexual power by gaining sexual access without commitment. Women showed their sexual power by acquiring courtship & deference without granting sexual access. The morality of sexual shame had a stranglehold on our culture, and it made for unhealthy relationships.
As I gay guy who started kind of early, I have never understood #1. As I advanced into my teens, sex got more urgent and less potent. I genuinely enjoyed sex more before that, and then again in my late twenties and afterward, now that it (again) takes longer… So was the peak when I could do it five times a day, or when I can put those five times together into one event, every two or three days?